My Chinese Students

Well, I know you're dying! I am here to teach kiddos, and now it's time to introduce a bit of what that's like. But, before I start, let me preface with, they are WILD. 

This is the view into a classroom. The kids stay in one room all day and their teachers come to them. They have a head teacher who is hired by the school instead of the government who is in charge of discipline for that class, but leaves when the teachers come to teach. There are 55-60 students in each of my classes. Instead of teaching set classes, I'm teaching all the English classes about three lessons during my time here, so the maximum amount of students have exposure to a native English speaker. It sounds silly, but it's really important they hear English and have an English speaker listen to them and correct them as much as possible. 

Passing period. You have no choice but to move quickly or become teacher roadkill. 

The English teachers finding out from Betty how to make my Powerpoint file work.They only have Windows 03, so I could have converted the file, but they insisted I not go to the "trouble." In English classes in China when they are in grade school, students get an English name. You can tell the era that most English names are based on from by the fact that their English names are Betty, Lydia, Paula, Doreen... Aren't those the top ten names right now? 

This is right before my lesson with this group of fourth graders, you can see about 40 of the students here, there's some rows to the right I didn't get here. 

School lunches... I think I have found the Achilles' heel in the "Chinese food is the best food ever" theory. I survive on fruit and veggies and rice at work. And water, water, water. 

Lunch time for the kids. 

Kids lined up to come in to lunch. When students are in primary school, they join the Young Pioneers, which means they become young members of the Communist party. If they are really good in school and have good behavior, they get to lead the class all the time in and out of school in the mornings and to and from lunch. The kids aspire to be leaders. 

Meanwhile, in third grade. HELLO! HELLO! HELLO! They love to show off the English they know. And they know: HELLO. MY NAME IS _______. NICE TO MEET YOU TOO... If you pictured that being said at a volume which would make the floor shake, you got it. :) My little guys are so cute. 

But did I mention wild? They run EVERYWHERE...

...Until the child-catcher music plays. Have you ever seen Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang? When I was a kid, I watched this movie probably when I was a litttttle too young for it. The music at the beginning to get all the kids to come out (featured below if you are brave enough to watch)? Well, they play it as a way to begin breaks and end them. The first time I heard it, my stomach dropped and I started looking around frantically... Luckily I was alone. Actually, unluckily. Thought I was was in danger of being snatched. I have gotten used to the volume and the running and the class size, but the song still freaks me out.

WARNING: YOU WON'T SLEEP SOUNDLY. 

Also, remember remember remember, I work in an elementary school, and this is ONE elementary school perspective, so I don't know if ALL schools do this sort of thing.

Of course, just like in America, every afternoon it's time for a song to play over the intercom while we all do our brain and eye exercises so we won't need glasses... Huh. I guess Bella should've done more eye exercises. I mean, if she could control her arms and stuff. 

My beautiful niece back home, Bella, and her baby glasses. Everybody say "awwwww." Or if you're a Chinese student speaking via sonic boom when I introduced Bella to my classes: "AWWWWW!!!!!!!"

We know her! What is she doing? She's teaching about family.

Explaining a game. If you know me, you know I love using games to teach! After learning and introducing, I wrote my brothers and sisters on the board and their ages (or for the younger kids, my nieces and nephews because their ages are younger) and then divided the class in half and had them race to see which side could answer more quickly. LOVE is not a strong enough word to describe their feelings for this game.

THE EXCITEMENT BUILDS. Of course, I do very different things for different ages, but so far Betty said all the students talk in the morning about how they want to be in my class, so, I'll take that as high praise. Also notice the microphone---sooooo necessary. 60 students v. me. (Also makes me feel like Beyonce, but that's just a positive side effect.Thinking of getting one just to use in every day life...)

Gas trip on the way home! Did your heart just STOP? Mine did the first time I saw it. But notice the little sign that looks like Pi to the right, which means Yuan. It's $75 worth of gas.

Dinner on the way home. Betty wanted to try a new tea house. We sat outside because the weather was lovely.

Yummmmm. Seafood. It's one of the major Chinese food groups: rice, noodles, seafood, vegetables, and random animal parts you would really rather not know before eating.

Until tomorrow, friends. Which for me starts in thirty minutes, and for you is 12.5 hours away. I come to you from the future, and baby the future's lookin' fine!